


burn me up like a fire

by alphadick



Category: The Walking Dead (TV), The Walking Dead - All Media Types
Genre: AU-Werewolves, Angst, M/M, Mating, Scent Marking, The Prison, Werewolf, human!rick, more tags will be added with chapters, werewolf!Daryl
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 20:05:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2594765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alphadick/pseuds/alphadick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl's always thought of himself as a lone werewolf, at least until he's thrown together with this rag-tag bunch of survivors. He doesn't much care for people touching him or getting close to people, but he can't help but be drawn to Rick. He likes the way the man smells, but most of all he's seen the man broken more than he’s been built up, who’s a thread away from losing it one second, and then the calm fearless man of honor that Daryl’s admires. They’re just drawn together. Simple as that, fire doesn't discriminate, it just swallows whole and burns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	burn me up like a fire

**Author's Note:**

> So, first off, obviously some characters that are already dead on the show are still alive here. Take this as a season three AU, where Shane isn't dead...hasn't nearly lost it as much as he did, and I've screwed around with the time line a lot. Most of the same events will happen but I'm making them work how I want them to.
> 
> Pre-warning, I'm taking Shane's characterization in a different direction cause I really don't like how many times he almost killed Rick, I understand it's a different world but that's his best friend man!
> 
> This is slow burn, be prepared.

Daryl can smell him from here; can sense the exact moment when the man’s sweat turns sour with fear and anticipation. He doesn’t like it when his scent changes so drastically; it ruins the effect it has on Daryl when it does that. Instead of calming him like usual Daryl can feel his hackles rising and the wolf pushing at the surface. “Rick?” Daryl grunts, fingers tightening around the crossbow as they near the building. The rest of the group is tight behind them, worry and fear rising over the smell of dead flesh and consequently clogging Daryl’s nose. He wants them safe, he wants a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs, and only then will the wolf come off the edge. He nearly snarls at the thought, gums burning with the want for his teeth to lengthen and sharpen.

“I gotta bad feeling,” Rick whispers, so low that only Daryl will be able to hear with his werewolf senses. It doesn’t make Daryl any less amped and he swings his crossbow in an arc looking for walkers. They’ve been on the run for weeks now, never staying too long in one place and it’s finally showing in their faces. Everyone’s haggard and scruffy, eyes more hollow with each passing day.

“Fuck,” Daryl hisses, stepping around Rick who looks like he’s about to protest, but Daryl just pushes him against the side of the building. The brief contact sends tingles through his skin, shooting up his arm like lightening. He gestures for the group to stop, finally retracting his arm from Rick’s chest and peering around the side of the building. His eyes shift to wolf with a mere thought, and suddenly he’s able to see even the tiniest movements. No movement in the courtyard between the buildings, a godsend. Everything reeks like death though, and Daryl can smell a higher concentration coming from the other building to the right. A wrong move and they could agitate the group in the building and the whole plan would go to hell.

Rick taps him on the shoulder, eyes questioning what their next move should be. Daryl leans closer to whisper, “we ain’t stayin’ here t’night, it’s overrun. A few of us can go in this buildin’ and check for supplies.” The man nods, taking a moment to form a plan in his mind and turning to give instructions. Shane, Glenn, Rick, and him are chosen to stake out the building and its supplies, everyone else is going to head back into the woods and away from danger should shit hit the fan.

“Daryl, you take point, I need yer nose,” Rick grunts, checking his gun for what must be the hundredth time. The scent of gunpowder has soaked into Rick’s skin to the point that Daryl is sure if he never picked up a gun again there’d still be a whiff from him every so often. Daryl likes the smell on him; it’s a part of him just like everything else. He should really be concentrating on smelling out walkers, on hearing them before they all die a painful death of being ripped to shreds, but Daryl can’t help the way Rick’s scent sticks in his nose and wraps around his lungs. 

Shane sidles up, boots scratching the pavement in a way that grates on Daryl’s sensitive hearing. That gets his concentration back, eyes moving from where they had been focused on Rick’s deft fingers.

“Gotcha,” and Daryl’s off, step light thanks to his supernatural powers. The door to the building opposite the one full of walkers is slightly ajar, and squeaks something awful when he moves to open it. There’s a shuffling of feet from inside, a groan and three walkers come at him out of the shadows. He picks one off with his crossbow and Shane steps in to get the other with his knife while Glenn takes care of the last one. A walker shuffles out of the back, catching them a bit off guard but Daryl strides over and knocks his elbow in an uppercut to the walker’s jaw. Sometimes werewolf strength comes in handy, especially when he only has to use a hard uppercut and he can send someone’s jaw up through their brain. Rick comes in behind them, eyeing the mess they’ve left on the entryway floor before moving in to start clearing rooms. He’s got his gun in one hand and his knife in the other. Shane and Glenn move forward too, spreading out across the small apartment building to try and find things of some use to them. Most of the doors are wide open, making it easy for them to enter and survey the damage. Just like Daryl thought though, most everything has been picked through, but they find a few cans of food and some bottled water that someone missed.

Daryl makes for a room, crossbow at the ready, there’s no one in there and Daryl finds himself in a nursery. His gaze sweeps around the pink room, tiny fluffy bears lining a shelf and picture frames of a happy family are hung on every wall. He scoops up two bears, thinking of Rick’s baby that will be born any day, and starts packing the rest of his bag with as much baby things as he can find. That’s when he hears it, a tiny sound, a cry that’s distorted and broken. Daryl startles for a second thinking that somehow there’s a baby that’s been left all by itself, but then he sees the crib.

He must not have noticed at first because the crib is shrouded in white frilly organza and tulle. When he steps over there’s a baby squirming and clawing at the air inside the pink and white crib. Daryl grimaces, throat constricting as he sees the reason the parents must have left their baby. “Yah poor poor lil girl,” he resists the urge to stroke her cheek. Rick’s scent hits him before he hears him enter the room. The man strides over quietly, eyes taking in the scene rather quickly and Daryl can practically hear the man’s heart skipping for a second. “Looks like she got bit an’ her parents left her.”

This has to be a bad omen, Daryl doesn’t want it to be but what else could it mean by them finding a baby infected. He glances to Rick whose face is pinched and drawn.

The baby’s still squirming around in the crib, trying to get at their flesh and blood. Rick takes a step back, Daryl doesn’t even think he’s rightly conscious of it, but then he steps forward again and draws his knife. “Don’t wanna leave her like that, doesn’t deserve to waste away to nothin’,” Rick states, as if he cares what Daryl thinks of him. And Daryl knows he does. Rick’s hand shakes as he raises it, knife wobbling a few centimeters each way. 

Rick smells like rainfall, like tears and pain, like sadness and finality. Daryl steps forward before he can do anything and takes the knife from his hand. “Quit tryin’ to pull all the weight yerself,” Daryl hisses, making quick work of putting the small babe out of her miserable half-life. He doesn’t like it, isn’t sure anyone would have taken pleasure out of it, but it’s a stain on both their hearts that they can share now. “I was gettin’ stuff fer the baby when it comes, and—“ he trails off because Rick knows the rest. Daryl offers up the backpack filled with baby clothes, diapers, bottles, formula, wipes, and some teddy bears.

“Thank you,” Rick replies hoarsely, taking the bag but letting his hand linger over Daryl’s for longer than needed.

||

It’s hard living in a human pack sometimes. Daryl has to deal with them not understanding certain customs or the urges that he gets. He’ll get the odd look every now and then, especially when they realize he won’t eat until Rick has taken the first bite or his obsessive tendencies with their makeshift homes. Daryl has to make it safe, like a den and that means providing for his pack. He drags mattresses into the living room, blankets and pillows and makes it comfortable. They used to want their own space, but being on the run makes them scared to be anywhere but together.

It’s even harder when he gets the need to scent mark everyone. It’s a wolf’s way of signifying pack, of presenting a united front, or being one. Just a brushing of shoulders, or a hand clasped or a thigh touched is enough, but some times no one wants to be touched or comforted in the way Daryl knows how to comfort. In the only way he knows how to comfort.

Rick, Carol, and Carl are the only ones that touch him back, and somehow Daryl understands the rest of the group’s frightened awe of him. Werewolves had just come out before the end of the world, people had been frightened and scared and uneducated. Even now, they never ask Daryl what he does for the full moon…well, not everyone. Rick does though. Rick waits outside for him every full moon, gun ready incase Rick needs to defend him from something, NOT because he feels the need to defend himself from Daryl. It’s in those moments that Daryl lets his wolf side have more control and he gives into the urge to walk up to Rick and lay down beside his prone form. It took a few times before Rick started digging his fingers into the fur of Daryl’s scruff but when he starts doing it Daryl doesn’t want him to ever stop.

||

He can feel the full moon coming, maybe a week away, but the power and pull is already sluicing through his veins. Daryl has this need to get up and run, to hunt things, to feel the wind through his fur. It’s in these few days before the moon that there’s a wild look to his eyes, untamed and feral. Where it sets everyone else on edge, it only makes Rick more focused. He needs his family safe and secure.

“Holy shit, lookit this!” Daryl’s at first mad that Glenn’s making such a fucking racket, but when he jogs over he instantly forgives the man. Over the crest of hill is a large abandoned prison with intact fences. To Daryl it’s a saving grace, a beacon on the hill, a new home. “You think we could take it?” Glenn asks hopefully, eyes trailing towards where Maggie is helping Lori up the ridge. She’s close to popping from what Daryl can smell, but nothing seems wrong, she still smells flowery and sweet. Like all pregnant mothers do.

“Hell, those walkers ain’t got a chance,” Daryl snarls victoriously, claws biting into his palms from where he’s clenching them too hard. They heal within the next second or two but the pain reminds him of his place even if the closeness of the moon is whispering sweet nothings in his ear.

Rick looks positively alive with prospect, eyes taking in the layout before them and already calculating a plan. “If we can make it inside the gate tonight and take out the walkers in the field we can patch up the fence and set up camp.” He doesn’t have to state that the double fence protection will afford them better sleep than they’d had in a while. A certain energy charges through the group, which does nothing to help Daryl who’s already wound tight on the moon and struggling with controlling his wolf. But the excitement is palpable and Daryl’s eyes are shifting back and forth in a nauseating way.

“Let’s fuckin’ do it then,” Shane adds, shotgun resting casually on his shoulder. They’re gathered on the hill in a small group, bent and weathered but not broken, never broken.

They run up to the fence, taking out the few walkers milling around their immediate area and then cut a hole in the wire. Rick ushers people through, Daryl going first so that he can take out the guards milling the walkway and clear a path for their people. It takes less then ten minutes to secure the first line of fence after Glenn secures the hole with wire.

Daryl’s even relaxing a bit with the prospect of clearing the field from behind the safety of a fence…but of course that’s when it has to go to shit. Apparently the front inside gate’s open a bit and the commotion they caused killing the first few walkers has a group of them forcing their way through the opening. “Fuck get back Lori, Beth take her over there,” Hershel shouts, pushing his daughter towards the pregnant woman. The smell of panic rises in his pack, setting off a trigger in Daryl.

With it being two days before the full moon Daryl can’t stop himself from charging into the group of walkers and shifting without a second thought. He kills the first few with a quick slice of his claws and pushes the rest back through the opening so that his pack can close the gate. They watch on from their respective positions for a few seconds, shocked into inaction, but then their brains catch up to them and they start banging on the gates, drawing walkers over and killing them. Some of the better shots like Shane and Maggie and Glenn start picking off walkers with their guns. Daryl runs through the tall grass and takes out walkers with his body. He’s crushing them beneath his paws and striking their heads off with his claws. The energy bunching in his muscles from the coming full moon gives him extra power and stamina. He vaguely registers Rick darting across the grounds to close the gate up at the top near the prison to stop more walkers from coming in, but knowing that the man is safe, his mind falls back to the carnage before him. 

When the grounds fall silent Daryl rolls to a stop, paws covered in brain matter and dark blood. His pack looks on with wide eyes, but Rick’s got this smug grin on his lips that infects his posture and suddenly he’s swaggering across the grounds like he just won the lottery.

“Y’all best thank Daryl properly, you’re gonna get a good night of sleep for once, good job everyone,” Rick grabs a piece of Daryl’s ripped clothing and moves up to the wolf, scrubbing off some blood that has smeared under the wolf’s chin. Daryl’s always so careful not to get it in his mouth, isn’t sure what it would do to him if he were to crush a walker’s head with his teeth but he’s not ever going to test it. “Thanks Daryl,” Rick says just for him as the sounds of their group laughing for the first time in a long time plays in the background.

Daryl slips away quietly to find a river to clean himself in.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading the first chapter, I'm new to writing Walking Dead fanfic and any comments or kudos would be greatly appreciated!


End file.
